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Thursday, August 31

Must See TV

In case you missed Don Rumsfeld's deplorable attack on anyone daring to speak out against the administration's handling of the War On Terror, here it is...

More importantly, is Keith Olbermann's response to said speech. It should be required viewing by every person in America. To help in that effort, here it is...

For those of you still on a dial-up ISP, the text of the commentary is as follows...

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances andshades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald S. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Warsyesterday demand the deep analysis - and the sober contemplation - of every American.

For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality orintelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans whooppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;Worse, still, they credit those same transient occupants - ouremployees with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neithercommon sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood ofhuman freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile, itis right, and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld's speechwriter wasadroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis.For, in their time, there was another government faced with trueperil - with a growing evil - powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld's, had a monopoly on all thefacts. It, too, had the secret information. It alone had the truepicture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics interms like Mr. Rumsfeld's - questioning their intellect and theirmorality.

That government was England's, in the 1930's.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let aloneEngland.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of alltreaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, whichcontradicted policies, conclusions - and omniscience needed to bedismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knewthe truth.

Most relevant of all - it "knew" that its staunchest criticsneeded to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile - atbest, morally or intellectually confused.

That critic's name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us thisevening. We have only Donald Rumsfeld's, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England- taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his ownconfusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.Excepting the fact that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute - and exclusive - in its knowledge, is not themodern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the modernversion of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today's Omniscients.

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused, is simply this:This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such,all voices count, not just his. Had he or his President perhapsproven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama BinLaden's plans five years ago - about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago - about Hurricane Katrina's impact one* year ago - we all might be able toswallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even usefulrecipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its ownarrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally orintellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq toKatrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelope thisnation - he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have - inadvertentlyor intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality andthe intellect of those of us who dare ask just foemperoreceipt for theEmperor's New Clothes.

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised?

As a child, of whose heroism did he read?

On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one dayto fight?

With what country has he confused the United States ofAmerica?

The confusion we - as its citizens - must now address, isstark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, andthis Administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim theterrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones forwhich the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this countryfaces a "new type of fascism."

As he was correct to remind us how a government that kneweverything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when hesaid that, though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feebletribute. I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalistEdward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could Icome close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral."

Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954.

"We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not bedriven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our historyand our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men;

"Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and todefend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

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